It would be interesting sociologically if complete statistics could be compiled, from the time when jurisdiction was conferred on the Inquisition, but this is impossible, for there are only a few fragmentary sources of the earlier period, although for the eighteenth century there are satisfactory materials in the special registers kept of this class of cases. In no case, however, do they furnish a standard by which to estimate the frequency of the crime, for the difficulty of inducing women to accuse left the great majority of cases buried in secrecy, in addition to which a marked feature of the records is the disproportion between the accusations and the trials, owing principally to the impediment arising from the requirement of at least two accusations, so that the trials and sentences are comparatively few in number. The working of this is exhibited, as early as 1597, in a report by Inquisitor Heredia of Barcelona of a visitation of part of his district, in which ten cases of solicitation were brought before him. Of these seven are noted as suspended in consequence of there being but one witness, another is suspended because the offender had been already tried and punished, leaving but two in which arrest and trial were ordered. In the visitation the whole number of cases was eighty-eight and the only offences more numerous than solicitation were unnatural lusts, of which there were fifteen, propositions which furnished twelve, the assertion that marriage is better than celibacy which furnished eleven, while blasphemy was on an equality with ten. All, or nearly all, of these latter classes doubtless led to prosecutions, while solicitation resulted in only two trials.[297] [Sidenote: _STATISTICS_] Llorente explains the discrepancy between the accusations and the convictions by misconstruction put on the interrogations of confessors, leading simple-hearted nuns to imagine themselves solicited.[298] This implies eagerness on the part of women to bring such accusations when, as we have seen, the main difficulty was to induce them to denounce, by threats of excommunication and refusal of absolution; in the majority of cases it was done only by order of a subsequent confessor, and this frequently five, ten, or more years after the occurrence. The fact is that only a small portion of offenders were denounced, and of these but a fraction were brought to trial. So far moreover from the evidence being only the excited imaginations of young girls, it rarely happened that a case reached trial without resulting in conviction--the preliminaries were too carefully guarded, and the dread of scandal too vivid, to permit the arrest of a priest against whom the evidence was not conclusive.